Public Transport...

I have a confession to make here. I know it's not fashionable and in some ways it's a little grimy but I love public transport, especially buses.

The second thing I have to confess at this point is that I don't drive.

That simple statement is enough to raise eyebrows in the UK, here in Portugal you get almost complete incomprehension. "Wait, you're breathing, what do you mean you don't drive?" I have mentioned before that the Portuguese love their cars, I should, for the sake of accuracy, extend this to all private motor vehicles because there are plenty of motorbikes and scooters around here too. As if to stress that disability should be no hindrance to exercising your right to pollute the skies and cause traffic jams I even see, on a regular basis, a man with no legs riding his specially made tricycle around the Saldanha area. It's as though he's trying to rub in the fact that not driving here is something worse than a disability.

All this means that those left to ride the buses here really are something special to behold. I've only been catching the bus here regularly for two weeks now and already I've had more surreal experiences than the previous two months. I've already seen a woman so pissed she got up to dance and sing to some Rolling Stones music for the entertainment of the other passengers, I've seen huge arguments erupt over things as trivial as an empty seat, I've seen a bus almost emptied because one man's hair smelt so badly.

Riding the bus also affords you the opportunity to observe those things outside the windows that you just miss when you are gliding past in a car. Yesterday for example I watched as one man (drunk or mentally ill, I wasn't sure) took off all his clothes and through them in the fountain at Rossio, an act I would've completely missed if we hadn't had to stop to pick up passengers.

S is now piling on the pressure for me to learn to drive and I do think it's a valuable skill that I will have to learn but I don't see it curbing my bus riding, especially in the city where there's so much to see.